Let's try this again...

This will be my second attempt at writing our first blog from Seoul. I had written a detailed and beautiful entry and it was lost in the expanse that is cyberspace. So instead you get this which will be much shorter and probably not nearly as beautiful.

Our flight was fairly uneventful, which as far as airplane trips go, is good news. We arrived at the airpot in Seoul at 7:00 p.m. It took us 45 minutes to get through customs and pick up our bags. When we got out of the airport there was someone there to meet us, but not who we expected. Sammy, our representative from our placement agency, had a family emergency and has taken a leave so we didn't meet him. Instead we had a very nice cab driver who didn't speak a word of English :)

The traffic from the airport to Seoul was horrible and we weren't at SLP (the school) until past 9 p.m. There we met the Vice Director - Hailey - and she took us to our respective apartments. Paul's roommates are Kevin and Bryan. Kevin is a native Korean who works at the school. He has the job luckly job as translator between teachers and parents. I must say that I don't envy his position. Bryan, who is from Sarnia, has been here for over a year. He will be leaving in December, which makes 16 months total. He has been a great resource so far and we're luckly to have him to help answer our questions.

My roommates are named Ivan and Rachel. Rachel, who is from Owen Sound, has been teaching for five months now. She seems like a lot of fun, and is really stylish and funky. Ivan is from Ireland and has only been here from 3 months.

So far all the information we've been given about training is scaring both Paul and I. From what we can understand it will be very overwhelming and the school will explain next to nothing, but will expect you to know everything. They believe that you should be able to pick everything up through observation, so the next two weeks of work will be strickly observing other teacher's classes. We've received some good advice on how to make training go more smoothly. Basically, ask lots of questions of the teachers, but not the supervisors. If you ask the supervisors they will see that as a sign of weakness and an inability to learn. Welcome to KOREA! They do things quite differently here, but that's why we're here. To experience another culture.

We've also been told that the work load will be really heavy for the first few months because of the learning curve. So if we don't update as often as you hope you know why :)

We spent the weekend grocery shopping, setting up our temporary rooms and getting to know the area of Gangnam. Just from a glance I can see already that food here will be difficult for me. This is a meat based diet and almost everything has meat in it. But with a lot of creativity and paitence I should be fine. The worst that will happen is that I will get bored of eating the same thing over and over again.

Tonight we will spend the night relaxing before our first day of school. We should have more information about the training process in the next few days. Until then we will both have our fingers crossed!